Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Vote of Six Moldovan Villages to Join Romania Worries Moscow

Paul
Goble

Staunton, January 30 – In the last
two weeks, six villages in Moldova have voted to join Romania and a Romanian deputy
has called for creating in Bucharest a ministry for uniting the two countries,
actions that some in Chisinau and Moscow view as part of “the creeping
absorption” of Moldova by Romania and by NATO

The votes of the villagers have no
legal standing, and the Romanian government has not shown any signs that it
will create such a provocative ministry; but reports about both have been
enough to rile some in Chisinau and others in Moscow who see all this as an
anti-Russian move by the West.

In Nezavisimaya gazeta, Svetlana Gamova, head of that newspaper’s
department for “the near abroad,” provocatively entitles her reportage on this “Moldovan
Villages are Leaving for Romania” and gives as its subtitle “In Bucharest they
want to create a ministry for the unification of the two states” (ng.ru/cis/2018-01-30/1_7161_moldova.html).

Pro-Moscow
socialists in the Moldovan parliament, Gamova reports, are demanding that the villagers
who voted to join Romania be punished in order to stop what one of their number
called “the creeping occupation of Moldova by Romania which in turn is
supported by the United States.”

Those in Chisinau and Moscow who oppose
the villagers also note that Romania has taken over the electric system of
Moldova, owns some of its biggest banks, and includes politicians like former
president Traian Basecu, who are promoting unity of the two countries and want
it to happen this year, the centennial of an earlier union.

By their voting, Gamova says, the
villagers who want to join Romania have created “yet another separatist region”
in addition to Transdnestria; but unlike that one which Moldova has fought
against, Chisinau has taken no official notice of what the villages are doing,
suggesting, the Moscow journalist implies, that they support it.

Nonetheless, she says, “a scandal
around the parade of unifications has broken out,” and other villages may soon
join the six. Polls suggest that most Moldovans want to remain an independent
state, but those who favor unity with Romania are gaining ground by suggesting
that life is better in Romania.